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OFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



aEPTJBLICAN CONVENT I ON 



CONVENED 



IN THE CITY OF PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA, 



On the 22d of February, 1856, 



. 



(Sr 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 
Published by the Republican Association of Washington. 

BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 
18 5 6. 






sv$& 



PEOCEEDINGS 



Friday, February 22, 1856. 

The hour of eleven having arrived, 
Hon. Lawrence Brainerd, of Vermont, took 
the stand, and spoke as follows : 

" Being one of those to sign their names to 
the call for this Convention, I have been re- 
quested to call the assemblage to order. Before 
proceeding further, I will read the call referred 
to. 

;< To the Republicans of the United. Slates : 

"In accordance with what appears to bethe general de- 
sire of the Republican Party, and at the suggestion of a 
large portion of the Republican Press, the undersismf d, 
Chairmen of the State Republican Committees of Maine, 
Vermont. Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania. Ohio. 
Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin, hereby invite the Re- 
publicans of the Union to meet in informal Convention at 
Pittsburgh, on the 23d February, 1S56, for the purpose of 
perfecting the National Organization, and providing for a 
National Delegate Convention of the Republican Party, 
at some subsequent day, to nominate candidates for the 
Presidency and Vice Presidency, to be supported at the 
election in November, 1856. 

A. P. STONE, of Ohio. 

J. Z. GOODRICH, of Mass. 

DAVID WILMOT, of Fenn. 

LAWRENCE BRAINERD, of Vt. 

WILLIAM A. WHITE, of Wh. 

RUFUS HOSMER, of Mick. 

u Under this call we now meet, and it is sug- 
gested that I nominate a temporary Chairman. 
I would therefore name John A. King, of New 
York."' [Applause.] 

Mr. King, on assuming the chair, remarked 
as follows : 

" Gentlemen of the Convention : My first 
duty is to acknowledge and thank you for the 
honor conferred upon me. My next duty is to 
say, briefly, that this is a preliminary meeting, 
simply for organization, in order to make a 
Convention which shall put forth the principles 
of the Republican party. Those principles, 
gentlemen, as I understand them, are those by 
which our Independence was achieved, on which 
our Constitution is established ; and, if we do 
our part with justice, moderation, and wisdom, 
the country and the Union will be perpetuated. 
I have nothing farther to say— that embraces 
my whole creed/' [Applause.] 

Governor Bingham, of Michigan, moved that 



Dr. Stone, of Massachusetts, and W. Penn 
Clark, of Iowa, act as temporary Secretaries. 
Carried. 

The Chair announced that the Rev. Owen 
Lovejoy, of Illinois, would address the Throne 
of Grace. 

Mr. Lovejoy delivered an eloquent prayer. 

On motion of Simeon Draper, of New York, 
a Committee on Permanent Organization was 
appointed, of one from each State and Terri- 
tory represented by delegates in this Conven 
tion. 

The following gentlemen were appointed said 
Committee: 



George M. Weston 
J. C. Beman- - - 
Lawrence Brainerd 
Charles G. Davis 
Josiah Brewer - 
Edward Harris - 
Simeon Draper - 
D. Ripley - - 
0. U. Johnson - 
Francis P. Blair 
Joseph Farley - 
Gen. B. Randall 
F. 0. Willington 
J. Redpath - - 
H. Jarvis - - - 
W. S. Bailey - 
D. N. Spratt - 
A. J. Stevens - 
L. G. Van Slyke 
William Grose - 
John H. Bryant 
F. C. Beman - 
S. N. Wood - - 
Charles Durkee- 
T. M. Newson - 
Lewis Clephane 



Maine. 

New Hampshire. 

Vermont. 

Massachusetts. 

Connecticut. 

Rhode Island. 

New York. 

New Jersey. 

Delaware. 

Maryland. 

Virginia. 

Pennsylvania. 

South Carolina. 

Missouri. 

Tennessee. 

Kentucky. 

California. 

Iowa. 

Ohio. 

Indiana. 

Illinois. 

Michigan. 

Kansas. 

Wisconsin. 

Minnesota. 

Dist. of Columbia. 



On motion of Mr. Dayton, of New York, a 
Committee of three, in conjunction with the 
temporary officers, were appointed to obtain 



the names of the delegates to the Convention, 
as follows : 

Isaac Dayton, New York; John A. Foote, 
Ohio; L. L. Lord, Pennsylvania. 

Remarks were made by Hon. Horace Gree- 
ley, of New York ; Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, 
o e Ohio; Rev. Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois ; Hon. 
W. H. Gibson, of Ohio ; and Hon. Icbabod 
Codding, of Illinois. 

Permanent Organization. 

Simeon Draper, of New York, from the Com- 
mittee on Permanent Organization, reported 
the nomination of Hon. FRANCIS P. BLAIR, 
of Maryland, as President. 

Hon. Preston King, of New York, conducted 
Mr. Blair to the chair. 

On ascending the platform, Mr. Blair was 
received with three loud cheers. 

On taking the chair, Mr.. Blair said that he 
was no orator, and that it was a remarkable 
fact that this was the first speech he was ever 
called upon to make. He felt very much af- 
fected by their kindness in calling him to the 
chair, not as any personal consideration to 
himself, so much as out of respect to his con- 
stituency. He had been connected with men 
whom the North and South both delighted to 
honor. 

The people of the South had been made to 
believe that the object of the Republican party 
was solely the abolition of Slavery; but when 
they understood its real design — to prevent the 
nullification of the rights of the North — we 
will find a different feeling in the South, and a 
response from that section that will astonish 
the North itself. In accounting for his presence 
at the Convention, he said that he had received 
a' call to represent the Baltimore Republican 
Association, composed of men of character 
and extensive wealth. They desired him to 
come here and lay before the meeting a paper, 
which was to be considered by the Convention 
as a Southern platform, and which he intended 
to have presented as a member on the floor. 
[Cries of ''read it;" "read it;" "No! no! wait 
until the organization is complete," &c] He 
again thanked the meeting for their kindness 
in placing him in the chair, and took his seat. 

Mr. Draper then announced the following 
nominations of Vice Presidents and Secretaries, 
which were accepted : 

Vice Presidents. 

Horatio G. Russ - - Maine. 

Francis C. Johnson - New Hampshire. 

Hon. L. Brainerd - - Vermont. 

Hon. George Bliss - - Massachusetts. 

James M. Bunce - - Connecticut. 

R. G. Hazzard - - - Rhode Island. 

E. D. Morgan - - - New York. 

W. P. Sherman- - - New Jersey. 

Joseph Farley - - - Virginia. 

Gen. Joseph Markle - Pennsylvania. 

W. S. .Bailey - - - Kentucky. 



Andrew J. Stevens - I 
HoiuR.P. Spaulding- 
Bon. Geo. W.Julian - Indian* 

John H. McMillan- - Illinois. 
Gov. K, S. Bingham - Michigan. 
David Jones - - - - Wisconsin. 
T. M. Newson - - - Minnesota. 
Lewis Clephane - - Dist. of Columbia. 

Secretaries. 
Russell Errett - - - Pennsylvania. 
| D. R. Tilden - - - Ohio. 
j Isaac Dayton - - - New Yor 
J. C. Vaughan - - - Iliin 
James W, Stone - - M 
Mr. Kimball of Obi 
: tee of three from eac 
. by each State delegation) be appoii 
; port a plan for the organization of the Re 
j can party. 

| On motion of Judge Spaulding, of Ohio, it 
J was laid on the table. 

Hon. A. Mann, jr., of New York, moved that 
I there be appointed one from each State, to 
draft an address and resolutions for the c 
eration of the Convention. 

Mr. Elliot, of Ohio, moved to lay it on the 
table. 

Mr. Mann arose, and said that the Committee 
| required all the time that could be given them 
! to prepare such an important document, and 
| hoped that the gentleman from Ohio 
| withdraw his motion. 

Mr. Elliot then 'withdrew his motion. 
Mr. Dennison, of Ohio, then renewed the 
motion to lay Mr. Mann's motion on the table 
for the present. The motion was 

Mr. Frey, of Ohio, then offered an am 
ment, that instead of one from each State, fc 
be appointed. Lost. 

A vojce then moved that two be appointed 
from each State, instead of one. Lost. 

Mr. Mann's resolution was then adopted, and 
the following gentlemen were appointed as the 
Committee on Address and Resolutions. 
Abijah Mann, jr. - - New York. 
. George M. Weston - - Maine. 
Francis C. Johnson - New Hampshire. 
L. Brainerd - - - - Vermont. 

E. Rockwood Hoar - Massachusetts. 
Gov. C. F. Cleaveland Connecticut. 
R. G. Hazard - - - Rhode Island. 

F. Deveraux- - - - New Jersey. 
John Allison - - - Pennsylvania. 
W. H. Dennison - - Delaware. 
Francis P. Blair - - Maryland. 
James S. Farley - - Virginia. 

T. M. Hewson - - - Minnesota. 
Lewis Clephane - - Dist. of Columbia. 
James Red path- - - Missouri. 
W.S.Bailey- - - - Kentucky. 
D. N. Spratt - - - California. 
C. G. Hawthorne - - Iowa. 
Oliver P. Morton - - Indiana. 



John C. Vaughan - - Mi 
Jacob M. Howard - 

I S. Love - - - Wisconsin. 
S. N. Wood - - - - Kansas. 
The Ohio delegation were authorized to fill the 
ia that State upon the Committee. 
Minn renewed his motion for the read- 
ing of the paper of Francis P. Blair. Carried. 

'ij-ov. Biugham, of Michigan, then read the 
Paper submitted to the Convention, in behalf of 
his Southern Constituents, by Francis P. Blair, 
President of th9 Convention. 
There is a great body of thinking men in the 
Southern States — many I know in Maryland, a 
^considerable number my neighbors in Mont- 
gomery county, who deplore the repeal of the 
compromises in relation to Slavery, which all 
hoped had terminated the distractions growing 
out of this disturbing subject forever. It is 
true these people have not hitherto manifested 
by public demonstrations their solicitude. The 
violation of good faith in the breach of these 
compacts of peace between the sections, and 
the fatal consequences likely to follow, were 
not at first obvious to the mass of the Southern 
people, because by the art of the politicians 
who conducted the passage of this measure 
Through secret caucus, where all the personal 
interests of the leaders in Congress and their 
partisans, making up the majority in both 
Houses necessary to effect it, were previously 
arranged — the repeal was made to appear as 
the voluntary tender of the North to the South. 
There had been no consultation by the mem- 
of Congress, in any quarter, with their 
constituents, either by issues made before the 
people, during the canvass or afterwards, or by 
address, petition, and votes in public meetings, 
cr by resolutions. 

us, extraordinary changes, affecting 

rests, and reaching the feelings, the 

ioua and political principles 

of men. as well as the political power of the 

State;-;, had hitherto always been, preceded or 

by every mode of forming and elicit- 

. vital move- 

a Republican Government. But in 

irowofallt! ,uents of the 

-■ess has haa 






1 sessi 



.mi'ited to 
was sealed 
by the 'the politicians 

in C 

ted, vras at 
e Committee's Report, as 

the Supreme Court of a 

ing the constitutionality of the 

compi -then, as a conclusion, that the 

com,, \.'d by the 

iretation of 

eal of the 

. also 



the compact with Texas, by which all the ter- 
ritory reserved by each of them as free from 
Slavery in the territorial condition, was opened 
up to its admission. 

This bill of intrigue, passed in conclave, by 
the aspiring politicians, to subserve per.s 
interests, was well understood by themselves 
and their partisans to be a bonus for the South- 

ie in the election of President, but it was 
ushered into Congress as the voluntary offering 
of the North to the South, to the principle of 
equality. It was thus divested, in the eyes of 
the South, of being a breach of faith on their 
side. It came as a free gift to them from the 
Chief Magistrate and other leading men, rep- 
resentatives of their Northern brethren. • 

They were not aware of the treachery of these 
representatives to their constituents, nor did 
they anticipate the excitement which had en- 
sued from the wrong, aggravated by the betray- 
al by which it was attended, nor the dangerous 
consequences likely to follow. Multitudes of 
honest patriots in the slaveholding States, who 
love the Union, would willingly restore the com- 
promises, the work of the great men of their 
own region. They are sensible of the fatal 
effects of its dissolution upon the peace and 
prosperity of the Confederacy, and of the inev- 
itable destruction of the security in which they 
hold the slave institution — of the frightful 
scenes of civil war and slave insurrection whieh 

arise out of the collisions between the 
two sections — on the one side, wearing the as- 
pect of a war of conquest, for the extension of 
; on the other, a war cf defence, to pre- 
serve the rights of the emigrants who have 
gone from their bosom. But these men of gocd 
faith, ct engagements, and, above all, 

the engagements which have produced concord 
and happy ties between the States of the 
Union, find their section already embarked in 
strife by the combination of politicians, who 
rsonal advantages by the power it gives 
them over the masses. . Warfare always com- 
mits the power and interests of the many to 
the few chiefs who manage it; and so the whole 
South is at this moment in the hands cf politi- 

who have contrived the movement, to 
strip the North of its interests, as provided for 
in the several compromises; and the best men 
, who are sensible of 
ure to de< ' 
lest they incur the impu 
:ir own sec ' 

Id be humiliation, and for which the 
ive produced it would si ; . 
them to the ch: i ' ing to stand by 

cause of their peculiar i 

persons who Lave sent i 
ventiou are the first of the slaveholdi 

. ve come forward to vindicate : 
of our common country ag 

ice. They are a body ci' 

-more, who feel that their city espee- 



and the State of Maryland, have a great stake 
depending on the preservation of the Union and 
the peace of the country. If the bonds which 
unite the two portions of the Union, distinguish- 
ed by free and slave institutions, should be 
severed, the nature of the different interests, 
growing out of the species of property in which 
it consists on one side, must involve continual 
conflicts for its recovery, when flying to the 
other for freedom ; and the animosity thus en- 
gendered cannot fail to bring on those protract- 
ed and bloody wars of ambition and conquest 
which have characterized nations of contiguous 
territory, in every age, and which have produced 
the most relentless hostilities between those of 
kindred blood. The wars between England, 
Scotland, and Ireland — the wars between France 
and England — of France and the northern na- 
tions of the continent — wars which make up 
the history of Europe, would have their parallel 
here. Maryland would become the Belgium of 
this side of the Atlantic — the Potomac, the 
Rhine. The shores of all our great rivers divi- 
ding the hostile States would frown with for- 
tresses, and centuries of bloodshed ensue, unless 
the peculiar cause originating the strife, should 
make an early end of it, by the intestine war 
of colors hastening its own extinction. 

Those I represent, abhorring the thought of 
civil war pressed on the mind of every man by 
the sectional feud, which, although now show- 
ing its violence only upon a remote frontier, is 
nevertheless at work in every spirited heart on 
. the continen 4 , have desired me to submit to 
this Convention, convoked to take the initiative 
in the nomination of a Chief Magistrate to up- 
hold the cause of the free States in the con- 
troversy, a proposition marked by justice and 
.moderation, to restore good feeling and con- 
cord ; and certainly there never was a contest 
where the plain honest idea that directed Jack- 
son's Administration was of such easy applica- 

N tion in settling a difficulty. Let the North ask 
nothing but what is clearly right, and submit 

\j to nothing that is wrong, and it cannot fail to 
bring the quarrel to an honorable termination. 
The dispute about the Territories was adjusted 
so satisfactorily to the whole country, that all 
parties, however, widely differing on other sub- 
jects, made it a point to give in adhesion to the 
settlement in every subsequent election — all the 
candidates for the Presidency, before and in 
the last canvass, in obedience to the several 
nominating Conventions, stood upon it as a 
platform. 

The present Chief Magistrate did more. By 
the very terms of his Inaugural Address, closed 
by a solemn oath, he may be said to have sworn 
his allegiance to the compromises of the slave 
question, declaring they should not be disturbed 
if he could prevent it during his term of ser- 
vice. He renewed the vow in the message to 
the first Congress he met, and, before its close, 
became the active instrument in abolishing 



every compromise made on the subject, since 
the foundation of the Government. It was done 
with the suddenness of the explosion of a mine 
of powder. The system planned by Jefferson 
and his compatriots, to prevent the extension of 
Slavery, and its dangerous tendency to disrup- 
tion of the Union — the safeguard superadded 
under Monroe's Administration — Lowndes, 
Pinckney, Calhoun, Crawford — all the great 
men of the South — aiding 5 and Clay especially 
distinguishing himself, after two years of strug- 
gle, in its effectuation — the late disposition of the 
controversy about the Mexican acquisitions, ac- 
complished by the same great man, supported 
by Webster, Cass, and by Benton also on the 
main point — the exclusion of Slavery by the 
prohibition of the Mexican laws — in a word, all 
the real statesmen of the country, by whom 
the compromises on the subject were made and 
pronounced as binding in honor as the com- 
promises of the Constitution, were blown up by 
the accession of President Pierce and Mr. Dong- 
las to the scheme of Mr. Atchison and a few 
Nullifiers who prepared the mine. 

Now, the simple remedy for this ruin is to 
rebuild the wcrk overthrown; and nothing is 
easier, if resolved on by the North, and persist- 
ed in, without regard to party names or party 
ties, or individual designs or predilections. 
There is not an honest patriot in the North, of 
any party, who does not condemn this act of 
bad faith. Many, it is true, warped by schemes 
of selfish ambition, and looking to their advance- 
ment through Southern influence, say the mis- 
chief done cannot be repaired. The compro- 
mises cannot be restored, because the Senate 
and the President hold a veto to forbid it ! 
There was immeasurably a stronger veto against 
the expunging resolution — the ball which Ben- 
ton, solitary and alone, put in motion. But 
public opinion triumphed then over the strong- 
est wills and the ablest men of the country. It 
cannot be withstood by the puppets now op the 
scene. In the mean time, the strong represent- 
ation of the North in the House can hold ev- 
erything in abeyance, until the Nation's voice 
shall pronounce its irresistible decision. 

That the South will acquiesce in it, whatever 
the violent men may say, who seek a dissolution 
of the Union, to make Charleston the New York 
of the South, none can doubt. How can it as- 
sume the attitude of nullification and war upon 
the compromises and compacts of its own Seek- 
ing, matured by its own greatest statesmen, un- 
der which they have enjoyed peace and safety 
for two thirds of a century, and the subversion 
of which makes the tenure, not only of the do- 
mestic institution, but of all they hold del 
in public or private life, depend on the chances 
of civil war? Whenever this issue corn'-. 
North will find an auxiliary in that same Union 
party in the Soul tstained Jacteon, and 

my constituents will have the proud pre-emi- 
nence of having first given in their adhesion 



to this, the really patriotic party of their sec- 
tion. 

■ The repeal of the repealing clause of the Ne- 
braska-Kansas act would be the finale of all the 
existing commotions, and of the eager ambition 
which originated them. If this single line is 
inscribed on our flag, we shall conquer under 
it. It will be the Union flag. 

The repeal of the Kansas-Nebraska clause, 
overthrowing the rights of the free States, is a 
vital, pressing exigency. It is the issue made 
by the acts of the Administration, and is the 
only one producing the existing excitement. 
It should be moved at once in the House of 
Representatives, as a practical mode of re- 
dressing the wrong and rebuking the aggress- 
ors, and to give notice that the majority of the 
People of the Union mean to vindicate their 
rights and the cause of free institutions, in the 
most direct manner ; and, also, that slavehold- 
ers may have warning in advance, not to hazard 
the property they value so highly, in a Territory 
from which by solemn covenant Slavery was 
interdicted, and which the sovereign power of 
the country has resolved to reinstate. This 
warning is necessary to preclude the plea of 
vested rights, as having effect in favor of such 
as go into Kansas or other free territory with 
slaves ; a plea which was urged successfully in 
Missouri. It is necessary, too, to estop owners 
of slaves from claiming indemnity for slaves 
freed by the act of Congress, recognising such 
Territory on coming into the Union as free. 
Even if Kansas were admitted at the present 
session of Congress as a free State, the repeal 
ought to be urged, to prevent the repetition of 
the Kansas outrages, in New Mexico, Utah, and 
all the territory of the United States, the Ne- 
braska act having (in violation of the prohibit- 
ory laws or treaty) opened them all up to simi- 
lar invasions. For these reasons, and many 
more that might be urged, touching the policy j 
of the measure, I hold that e7ery issue should | 
merge in that of Repeal. 

There is one view more, which duty to my 
Southern constituents prompts me to present ; 
for consideration. In the South, both the old ' 
parties, Whig and Democratic, have blended I 
their strength to secure the conquest of the ! 
free territories for the slave institution. Mr. ] 
Caruthers, a stanch Whig of Missouri, when ; 
asked where were the Whig party, answered, 
that its soul had transmigrated into the Demo- ■ 
cratic body in the Soufh ; and while pronounc- j 
ing the proudest eulogium on Henry Clay, | 
whose principles he still held as his political '■ 
faith, admitted that the measure on which the ': 
slaveholding section had planted its standard '' 
bad identified in its support the Whigs and ! 
Democrat of the slaveholding States, however : 
differing on other questions. The South Anier- ! 
ieans, although all connection with them was ! 
reprobated by the Democratic caucu3 of the : 
House, and by the official organ of the Admin- : 



istration at Washington, were constrained to 
support Mr. Aiken, the Administration candi- 
date for Speaker, at the close of the contest. 
This proves that all political organizations, 
hostile as they are on all subordinate questions 
upon the sectional policy of extending Slavery 
to territory hitherto free, are one and indivisi- 
ble. The success achieved by the Southern 
politicians, by inducing all the Northern aspi- 
rants for the Presidency to run a race for the 
favor of the South, in showing who would go 
farthest and fastest to make surrender of the 
rights of their constituents to the slaveholding 
section, leaves no public man in the South any 
other alternative than to relinquish his position, 
or insist on that great conquest for the slave- 
holding interest, to which it was contrived to 
give the appearance of being a voluntary boon, 
tendered by the North to the South. It is this 
strategy which renders it impossible at this 
time for those among the people who favor the 
compromises, to rally in the South to maintain 
what they are sensible honor and good faith 
recognise as binding, because made by its own 
statesmen, then in command of the Govern- 
ment, and sanctioned by their own consent. 
In the South, there can never be a party to as- 
sist in redressing this wrong, until the North 
dispels, by its unanimity, the illusion that its 
people are willing to acquiesce in it. 

The hopes depending on party leaders, con- 
trolling everywhere the old organization of the 
Democratic party in the free States and the in- 
fluence and patronage of the Administration, 
have done much to stifle the voice of the mass- 
es in the free States. If they will in the ap- 
proaching Presidential election unite all parties, 
indignant at the violation of the rights of the 
North, to assert them, as all have united in the 
South to deny them, the injustice will soon be 
remedied. When the North is true to itself, 
there are multitudes in the other section who 
will preceive the iniquity it has suffered, but 
who would never see it, if tamely acquiesced in. 
There are thousands in the South who are sen- 
sible of the danger to themselves in the breach 
of the compacts about Slavery, who estimate 
truly the consequences of a rupture of good 
feeling between the sections, and who, rather 
than bring matters to the arbitrament to which 
they seem to be hastening, would willingly see 
the broken compacts restored — but if, from want 
of concert of action, the North, however in- 
jured and excited, can make no effectual resist- 
ance, it may prepare for a repetition of indigni- 
ties and wrongs to which those who offer them 
will set no limit, when there are no bounds to 
submission. This Republican Convention is a 
nucleus which it may be hoped will gather around 
it the masses of the North, who are resolved to 
redress the wrong perpetrated by the passage 
of the Kansas-Nebraska act. " The Republican 
party " was the early designation of that which 
subsequently took the soubriquet of Democrat, 



at first given in derision, Mr. Jefferson, in Iris 
first inaugural, calling the parties by the names 
under which they then were arrayed against 
each other, said, " we are all Republicans, we 
are all Federalists." He meant, doubtless, that 
there were certain great principles, in which 
both agreed, embraced in their designations, 
however much they disagreed about matters of 
policy and modes of administering the Govern- 
ment. 

The Federalists gave their support to the Re- 
publican form of Government — the Republi- 
cans were devoted to the Federal compact — 
both agreed in opposition to royalty, and in op- 
position to a severance of the Federation, and 
leaving the States to drift as petty nations de- 
tached from each other. May not those who 
have organized with a view to correct what they 
consider mere error in the legislation and ad- 
ministration of Government, under whatever 
party name or watchword they rally, unite with 
those who do not agree with them about the 
measures or mode of reform, on points which 
involve nothing vital, to redeem the Govern- 
ment from an infraction of fundamental laws, 
on which they believe its peace and prosperity 
certainly depend, and possibly its unity as a 
nation? Cannot all parties in the North unite, 
in such a crisis, to preserve what they in com- 
mon feel to be paramount to all other questions 
in controversy, which have heretofore divided 
them ? And cannot all rally under a Republi- 
can standard, to defend the cause of free insti- 
tutions and the Union against the aggression 
of interested and ambitious men, who make 
Slavery the means of combining a sectional 
force to accomplish their designs against them, 
and especially when, if this moment be lost, the 
cause must be lost ?. 

The great movement made to repel Southern 
aggression, putting all questions of difference 
in abeyance, uniting for the time, does not im- 
ply a surrender of other party principles, or of 
the organizations to be employed to give effect 
to them hereafter. But such is the reluctance 
of men who have battled for a cause under a 
banner to which ib.ey have given their affec- 
tions — so loyal are the hearts of good men, even 
to the badges they have worn and which 
honor — that they will not desei for oth- 

ers, although they feel the necessity of uni r . : 
with those whom they have once opposed, in 
support of still dearer and more important in- 
terests. I think : eeling should be 
consulted by this Convention in the arrange- 
ments it may make to produce conceit i 
all parties who place the Ltion of the 
free Territories from Slavery (and, as a result, 

rvation of the Union) above all 
subjects of controversy; and it is to be hoped 
that measures r Lopted to induce 

ids of this cause, who are unwilling to take 
part in nominating candidates for th 
6 ? th.ti Governing! 



lican Convention, to send delegates to separate 
Conventions, under their own party designa- 
tions, to meet at the same time and place, to 
confer upon the subject of the nominations, 
and in conclusion, if found necessary and prac- 
ticable, to unite in a Mass Meeting of the rep- 
resentatives of all parties, drawn together to 
confer in regard to the means of extricating the 
country from the threatening and most alarm- 
ing posture in which it is now placed — surren- 
dering for the occasion all questions of minor 
differences of policy, and reform, and personal 
predilections for men of this or that party, and 
giving, as did the patriots of the Revolution, 
the whole heart to the cause, and nothing but 
the cause, and thus by joint counsels insure a 
glorious triumph for the conservative principle 
of our Government — the public will. The can- 
didate of such a Mass Meeting would stand 
above the conflicts of partisan polities, and, like 
the elevated chiefs who led in the establish- 
ment of our independence, would value no man 
but as a contributor to the success of the great 
cause of the country. 

This was received with marked approbation by 
the whole Convention, insomuch that it was 
proposed to adopt it as the address of the body; 
but, as the author observed that it was not de- 
signed for that purpose, 

Mr. Vaughan, of Illinois, moved that the ad- 
dress of the President of the Convention, giving 
the views of the Republicans cf Maryland, be 



received as 


entiments of oui 


friends, inse 


.he Journ J inted 


Uan - 


jlarnation. 


On 


. 


three 





AFTS3N00H SESSION. 

. Simeon Draper moved tjhat tbe Co 
tion adjourn till half past six o'clock. 

After dis 
others. : r was reject 

On _Ir. Barren. 

nan was excused until sei 
order that the Committee on Add i Reso- 

j Lotions might have his services. 

Go n, of MichL hair. 

Hie elegation from Ohio reported 
of W. Dennison, jr., on the Con a Res- 

olutions. 

The Secretary read the : 
Thumm and Sigismund Low, Gen 
had hi hh the Dt; 

but now ap 

I legates to this Cotiv 
were admitted by gi 






lican banner. No further extension of Slavery. 
The Americans are with you. 

Thomas Spooner." 

On motion of Mr. Sackeft, of New York, the 
motion of Mr. Kimball, of Ohio, for a Commit- 
tee of three from each State, on the National 
Organization, was taken from the table, and, 
after discussion by Messrs. Wharton and Kim- 
I ball, of Ohio, and after an amendment sub.sti- 
I tuting one from each State, in place of three, it 
was adopced, and the following Committee ap- 
pointed : 

H. G. Russ .... Maine. 

J. C. Beaman - - - New Hampshire. 

Charles G. Davis - - Massachusetts. 

Mark Howard - - - Connecticut. 

ward Harris - - - Rhode Tsland. 

William A. Sackett - New York. 

C. M. K. Paulison - - New Jersey. 

W. LI. Dennispn - - Delaware. 

Richard Brannin - - Virginia. 

William B. Ttiomas - Pennsylvania. 

F. Kemper - - - - Missouri. 
W. S. Baiiey - - - Kentucky. 
A. J. Sieve us - - - Iowa. 
Charles Reemelin - - Ohio. 

G. W. Julian - - - Indiana. 
Owen L >vejoy - - - Illinois. 
Z-teh. Chandler - - - Michigan. 
Charles Durkee- - - Wisconsin. 

On motion of Mr. Draper, of New York, it 

I was voted that the delegations from the several 

S"ates have p )wer to fill vacancies; and that, 

ai'[er the adj )urnment, the Committees shall 

fill their own vacancies. ' 

On motion of Mr. Foo'e. of Ohio, a Business 
Commktee of five was appointed by the Chair, 
, as follows : 



John A. Foote - - 
Whitney J >nes - - 
Calvin C. B-tyley - 
GjOr^e M. Grier - 
B. B. 1 Charnberlin ■ 



Ohio. 

Michigan. 

Wisconsin, 

New York. 
Pennsylvania. 

Remarks were made by Messrs. Reemelin of 
Ohu, Chandler of Michigan, Foote of Ohio, 
Passmore Williamson of Pennsylvania, Judge 
Spaulding of Ohio, and Mr. Bliss of Massachu- 
setts. 

The Convention adjourned to 7§ P. M^ 

EVENING SESSION. 

Called to order by Gov. Bingham, Vice Presi- 
dent;. 

Remarks wera made by A. Oakey Hail, Dis- 
trict Aitomey of the city of New York. 

The President of the Convention, Mr. Blair, 
resumed the chair. 

Remarks were made by Hon. Preston King 
of Ssw York. John C. Vaughan of Illinois, 
Hm. Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio. 0. G. Haw- 
thorne of Iowa, Rev. Mr. Brewer of Connecti- 



cut, Hon. George W. Julian of Indiana, and D. 
Ripley of New Jersey. 

The Convention then adjourned till Februa- 
ry 23d, at 9 A. M. 

Saturday, February 23, .1856. 

Convention called to order at 9 A. M., by 
Vice President W. P. Sherman, of New Jersey. 

Voted, that the reading of the Journal be 
dispensed with. 

Mr. Arney, of Illinois, said that as neither 
of the Committees were ready to report, he 
would move that a delegate from each State 
address the Convention, as to the state of Re- 
publicanism in the State represented— the 
speeches not to exceed ten minutes in length, 
£ach. Adopted. 

In accordance with this vote, remarks were 
made by Messrs. Stone of Massachusetts, Burice 
of Connecticut, Burroughs of New York, Gaz- 
zam of Pennsylvania, and Ciephane of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. 

The following letter from Cassius M. Clay, of 
Kentucky, was read, and ordered to be printed : 

February 8, 1856. 

Gentlemen: Your favor of the 25th Decem- 
ber ult. was duly received, but, under the pres- 
sure of business, I have not been able sooner to 
give you an answer. Allow me to say that I 
approve of your central organization of the 
li National Republican Association," the expe- 
diency of its establishment, and the patriotism 
of its purposes. 

I regret that the causes which have so long 
delayed my answer, will not allow me to accept 
your flattering invitation to address your society 
during the present session of Congress. 

Presuming, however, upon the language of 
your letter, that my " position as a Soufhean 
man," and "the circumstances of the present 
time," would enable me to do '"the cause more 
good than any other man in the nation," I ven- 
ture to make some remarks, which my devo- 
tion and long self-sacrifice to the cause of lib- 
eral principles, will entitle to more considera- 
tion than any ability I shall be able to bring to 
the task. 

I enclose you m^ speech delivered some 
years ago, at Lexington, Kentucky. In that 
you will find all J have to say of African Slave- 
ry and emancipation as a " Southern man." 
I think I have there shown that Slavery 13 con- 
sistent only with a state of semi-barbarism. 
And before the friends of Liberty in the South 
can be driven from the field of successful logic, 
our opponents must denounce civilization itself. 
I have there proven that all material develop- 
ment is retarded by Slavery. Not only, by a 
priori reasoning, as much as Slavery debases 
labor and^makes it ignorant, that therefore it 
saps the foundation of its efficiency — but that 
the experiment of free and slave labor in these 
States, in agriculture, in manufactures, in 



10 



mining, and in commerce, confirm the conclu- 
sion. 

The census, though necessarily imperfect, 
no doubt, has driven the intelligent men of the 
South to acknowledge, that the North excels 
the South not only in these last departments, 
but that the South is second even in agricul- 
ture; where, before the stubborn battery of 
figures was brought to bear, she once success- 
fully entrenched herself for defence. 

" Cotton " is no longer " king/' but gives way 
to eight articles of staple production — Indian 
corn, wheat, hay, and fodder, pasturage, cattle, 
horses and mules, slaughtered animals, and 
swine ! The value of horned cattle is put down at 
$420,000,000, whilst cotton is only $126,000,000. 

The great cities — the exponents of the pro- j 
ductive and consumptive powers of States — the 
canals, the railroads, the ships, of the North, 
had, to the philosophical mind, determined the 
result, long before statistics came in to silence 
debate. Massachusetts itself is said to contain 
one eighth part of all the capital of the nation ! 
With a poor soil and a harsh climate, she has 
subjected the forces of nature, instead of her 
fellow-man, to her will. " Free schools " have 
allowed her workmen to avail themselves of the 
mechanical powers, of chemistry, of electricity, 
of the winds, of the waters, and of steam. In 
Maine, in Vermont, in New Hampshire, in 
Connecticut, in Massachusetts, wherever manu- 
facturing towns spring up, you will find Boston 
capital. Her railroads extend into every land, 
and her ships sail on every sea. All the South, 
with her superior climate, quality and extent 
of soil, variety of productions, and facility for 
railroads and canals, presents, in approxima- 
tion, even no such city as Boston. 

"Cursed be Canaan!" and he is — master 
and slave ! Who shall deliver them from this 
death? 

In intellectual and moral improvement, there 
is more room for controversy. Yet the conclu- 
sion is not far off, when the defenders of Slave- 
ry denounce the newspaper press and common 
schools as " damnable heresies " of progress, 
and in conflict with ail true " conservatism." 
The many " isms," in social, political, moral, 
and religious science, of tjjie North, which are 
so much railed at by the slave-propaganda, are 
the evidences of intellectual life — the scales 
which are wastefully thrown off from the stimu- 
lated mind and passions, whilst man is being 
transformed into better metal and nobler struc- 
ture. The "conservatism " of the South is the 
quietude and homogeneousness of the unwrought 
ore, which lies forever unchanged in the dark 
mines of ignorance and despotism ! 

When all these arguments are pressed home 
upon the South, the advocates of the " peculiar 
institution" venture to take refuge^n the al- 
leged superior courage and gallantry of South- 
ern men. It is not my part, myself a South- 
ron, to draw invidious distinctions, in this re- 



spect, between the North and the South. There 
are noble elements of character in both people. 
But the annals of these fctates give no warrant 
to the South to claim precedence in these over 
the freemen of the North. We cannot forget 
ivhere were fought the first and bloodiest bat- 
tles ; and those ever-memorable sea fights 
where, if anywhere, it can be said of America, 
" Ervpuit seeptrumque tyrannis ! " Neither is 
the " Logic of History" in favor of the prowess 
of slaveholding States. The warlike tribes who 
overthrew the slaveholding and more civilized 
nations of Eurgpe, during the decline of the 
Roman Empire, were not the slaves of arrogant 
tyrants, but stern freemen, following, voluntarily, 
the standard of elected leaders. So later his- 
tory bears us out ; and nations are now power- 
ful, in proportion as they are free. Sentiments 
of Liberty only impart heroism to the soul ; 
and equality and dignity of labor only give that 
energy and capability of physical structure, 
which are alike necessary to success in peace 
and war. So long as nations have been free in 
their municipal organization, they have rarely 
fallen under foreign conquest. Only when the 
masses of the people have become servile, has 
it been that they care no longer to choose be- 
tween masters, and that their subjection has 
been sure. 

These, gentlemen, are the views which, as a 
citizen of a slave State, I have so often and 
earnestly urged upon the South. As an Anti- 
Slavery question, it can only be legitimately 
settled by the slave States themselves. There 
the founders of the Republic placed it, and 
there the wise men of the whole nation have 
ever been willing to leave it for solution. 

But the necessary sequences of its toleration 
has elevated this from a "sectional" to a "'na- 
tional" issue. It is no longer a question of 
"Slavery a : id Anti-Slavery," but of Liberty 
and Republicanism on one side, and " Divine 
Right" and Despotism on the other. The 
Slavery propaganda have re-opened the prob- 
lem solved by the evolution of the centuries, 
and ignore "a law of nature" which our lathers 
of 17 76 simply "re-enacted" in terms in the 
immorral Declaration. The viper, warmed in- 
to life by our mistaken sympathies, recovers its 
ancient venom, and threatens to drive from the 
home of the United States Constitution the 
rightful owners of the hearthstone 1 Slavery, 
which was left only to die with decency, '" bag 
become the vital and animating spirit of the 
National Government." The Oligarchy of the 
three hundred thousand slaveholders no longer 
conceal their purposes or deny their assump- 
tions. Not only the Blacks, but the Whites of 
the South have lost their liberties. Nominally 
free, they have long since ceased to be a "third 
estate" in the slave States. They have no so- 
cial equality — no political force — no moral in- 
liuence. Steeped in ignorance and poverty, 
the privileged class neither respect their opin- 



11 



ions nor fear their power. The ostensible 
representative-- of the people, in obedience to 
their masters, have not only reduced the labor- 
ing masses to servitude, but add insult to in- 
jury, by openly avowing that Slavery is the 
rightful state of the laborer everywhere. White 
and Black! All the guarantees of English 
Liberty which we inherited before the Revolu- 
tion are stricken down. The reign of terror 
has done its dread work ; from the press, the 
pulpit, and the stump, there comes no word of 
remonstrance. The horrors of mob law have 
crushed out the spirit of the once gallant yeo- 
manry of the South. Despair ha3 seized upon 
the braves' hearts; weeping, bleeding, dying, 
we sink down into our voicelss woe ! 

Marching from the field of home conquest, 
the three hundred thousand take possession of 
the National Government — plant their flag upon 
the capital of the Union — and by sea and shore 
denounce and brin^ to the block the treason- 
able advocates of Republicanism ! The slave- 
holders have from the beginning been in secret 
rebellion against the Government of our fathers : 
b ut now, seconded by atroci ous servility in church 
and State, they avcw their supremacy and 
defy resistance. They control our foreign and 
domestic policy, make war and peace, enact 
and trample under foot laws and treaties and 
constitutions, as suits their despotic wills. 
Their avowals are no less insulting, than their 
acts are insufferable and despotic. In the tem- 
ple of Liberty. Liberty is herself derided. In the 
Senate of the United States, the principles of its 
founders are denounced as a lie. The celebra- 
tion of the Fourth -of July, in all the slave 
States, is looked upon as little else than a trea- 
sonable emeute. The laws of Congress and the 
constitutional privileges of the citizens of the 
several States are alike denied validity, when 
conflicting with the opinions or interests of the 
Oligarchy. Courts of justice which are denied 
in one State for the liberation of a citizen, are 
perverted in another to the destruction of the 
liberties of all. The great writ of Habeas Cor- 
pus, which we vainly imagined the sheet anchor 

: of our freedom from arbitrary power, has been 
by our highest justices turned into an most fa- 
cile and terrible instrument of irresistible des- 
potism. The right of petition and remonstrance 
against these judicial tyrannies, once forbidden 
by the record, is now no less effectually struck 
down by proscription. The defenders of the 
rights of man are deemed unfit for place out- 

j side of Congress — as "belonging to an un- 
healthy organization," they are excluded from 
honorable position in it. 

The friends of Liberty, driven from the cap- 
ital, take refuge in the States ; but even there, 
their tameness of spirit and ignoble obscurity 
cannot shield them from renewed insult and 
determined extinction. Laws, monstrous and 
unconstitutional, pursue them to their homes, 
stain with blood the sacred hearthstone, and 



compel them to complicity in the greatest of 
wrongs which is capable of being inflicted upon 
human nature'. If the codes of antiquity were 
justly denounced as bloody, which, for one 
crime inflicted one penalty, by the hard de- 
privation of one right, what shall be said of this 
statute, which, without crime, exhausts all pen- 
alty, and leaves the bleeding, mutilated, dying 
victim, not only without a single right, but with- 
out claim for a tear of sympathy I No wife, no 
husband; no parent, no child; nor sister, nor 
brother, nor lover; no houses or lands; no 
property, no privileges ; no will, no pursuit of 
happiness; no house; no country; no Bible; 
no God! In life no security, in death no re- 
dress ! And this, not the deed of a State re- 
luctantly performing in her sovereign right a 
constitutional obligation; but, in hurried obe- 
dience to despotic will, nerther the rights of the 
people are respected, nor the decencies of out- 
raged justice observed. Chains, unhappy em- 
blems, are thrown around the courts ; and hired 
mercenaries obstruct the rightful ingress and 
egress from the temples of justice and the legal 
pursuits of ordinary life. Alas! that the monu- 
ments of other days should look down upon deeds 
of tyranny more infampus than those which, in 
times past, caused the glory of their erection ! 

The antecedents of our history are reversed. 
Slavery ceases to be " sectional," and becomes 
" national." Wherever the flag of the Union 
is displayed, there Slavery is legally planted. 
The barriers of three generations' solemn de- 
crees are broken down ; and, in the name of 
" popular sovereignty," are the liberties of the 
people destroyed. The peaceable occupants of 
the Territories are set upon by armed force 
from the slave States, the ballot-box destroyed, 
and themselves conquered and subjected to laws 
of foreign legislation, never before, for long 
centuries, attempted to be enforced even in 
monarchical England; and which, carried into 
effect, will make the whites of Kansas equal 
slaves with the blacks of Missouri. The blcod 
of peaceable, unoffending citizens, cries aloud 
in vain for vengeance. The Executive of the 
United States, whose duty it is to see the laws 
faithfully executed, meanly shirks his oath of 
office ; secretly encourages the foray against 
Freedom; and, with the instincts of a servile 
spirit, hurls his denunciations only against those 
who, by blood and Slavery, are suffering the 
penalty of his folly in policy, and criminal weak- 
ness in action. 

Gentlemen, all these things acomplished, 
and more threatened in the future, compel 
me to repeat — " It is no longer a question 
whether the blacks shall be slaves, but whether 
the whites shall be free?" What was "fanati- 
cism" yesterday, is fact to-day ! Republican- 
ism, then, is to be saved, or lost. We are no 
new party ; we avow no new principles ; we 
want no new name ; we make no new issues ; 
we desire no revolution. 



12 



Lovers of law, we stand by thelNational and 
State Constitutions, in the wise compass oi 
progress and reform, with which our fathers 
framed them. Conservatives, we believe that 
justice is the highest expediency ; that Right 
is the eternal basis of safety. Progressives, 
we abhor bloodshed and war. Trusting to the 
force of reason and liberal sentiment, we pa- 
tiently await the beneficent influence of the 
centuries. Democrats, we vindicate the rule 
of the People against the usurpations of the 
few. Whigs, we contend for privilege against 
power. Republicans, we are no propagand- 
ists — daring to live out, at home and abroad, 
the fact of our profession, we avow ourselves 
the friends of the People, and the sworn ene- 
mies of tyrants the world over. Men, we ac- 
knowledge no distinction of clime, of color, or 
of caste, but declare the universal brother- 
hood of the human race. 

Lovers of the "Union," we make no false 
clamor about, dissolution. Distinguishing the 
shadow from the substance, we will defend it 
so long as it is worthy of defence, and, to make 
our loyalty immortal, we will trench it round 
with the defences of justice, liberty, and law; 
and, by securing others' rights, make them the 
battle guards of our own. Born free, we call 
no man master. Trespassing upon the rights 
of none, we will defend our own. Standing 
upon the defensive everywhere, in peace and 
war, let us meet our enemies as becomes the 
prestige of our descent and the glory of our 
cause. % 

Gentlemen, these are my ideas of what is to 
be done, and how it ought to be done. If the 
"Republicans" inscribe thern upon their ban- 
ker, they will have many an abler, but no more 
devoted follower than 

Your obedient servant, 

C. M. Clay. 
Messrs. E. M. Joslin and L. ClepJiane, 
Committee, &c, Washington, D. C. 

Mr. Julian, of Indiana, from the Committee 
on National Organization, presented the fol- 
lowing report and recommendations : 

1. The Committee recommend the appoint- 
ment of a National Executive Committee, con- 
sisting of one from each State, and that the fol- 
lowing gentlemen constitute said Committee : 

Edwin D. Morgan, Chairman, New York city. 
Abner R. Hallowell, Bangor, Maine. 
George G. Fogg, Concord, New Hampshire. 
Lawrence Brainerd, St. Albans, Vermont. 
Nathaniel P. Banks, jr., Waltham, Mass. 
William Chase,"jr., Providence, Rhode Island. 
John M. Niles, Hartford Connecticut. 
C. M. K. Paulison, Passaic, New Jersey. 
David Wilmot, Towanda, Pennsylvania. 
James Redpath, St. Louis, Missouri. 
John G. Fee, Berea, Madison county, Ky. 
A* Ji Stevianfl^ Fort Desmoinesy Iowa, 



A. P. Stone, Columbus, Ohio. 

William Grose, Newcastle, Indiana. 

E. S. Leland, Ottawa, Lasalle county, Illinois. 

Charles Dickey, Marshall, Michigan. 

Wyman Spooner, Elkhorn, Wisconsin. 

Francis P.Blair, Washington, D. C, Maryland. 

Lewis Clephane, Washington, D. C. 

2. That the National Executive Committee 
be authorized to add to their number from each 
State and Territory not now represented, and to 
fill vacancies. 

3. The Committee further recommend the 
holding of a Republican National Convention for 
the 'nomination of candidates for President and 
Vice President of the United States, at Harris- 
burgh, Pa., on Tuesday, the 17th"day of June 
next, to be composed of delegates from the 
several States, equal in number to twice the 
representation in Congress to which each State 
is entitled. 

4. That the Republicans of the several States 
be recommended to complete their organiza- 
tion at the earliest practicable moment, by the 
appointment of State, county, and district com- 
mittees ; and the State and county committees 
are requested to organize the respective coun- 
ties by Republican clubs in every town and 
township throughout the land. 

It was moved, and carrie'd, that the report be 
adopted by sections. 

The first and second sections were read and 
adopted. 

On motion of Mr. Wood, of Kansas, the name 
of Gov. Charles Robinson, of Kansas, was add- 
ed to the National Executive Committee. 

Judge Spaulding moved to strike out from 
the third section, Harrisburg, as the place of 
meeting. Adopted — and Philadelphia substitu- 
ted, after discussion by Elliot of Ohio, Sackett 
of New York, and Thomas of Pennsylvania. 

On motion of Mr. Lovejoy, of Illinois, it was 
voted to strike out from the fourth section two 
delegates for each member of Congress, and sub- 
stitute three. 

A motion to substitute a plan of represent- 
ation, by Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, was laid on the 
table, and the report of the Committee, as 
amended, adopted. 

Hon. Abijah Mann, jr., of New York, present- 
ed the report of the Committee on Address and 
Resolutions, as follows, which was read by Mr. 
Dennison, of Ohio. 

REPOET, 
To the People of the United States: 

Having met in Convention at the city of 
Pittsburgh, in the State of Pennsylvania, this 
22d day of February, 1856, as the representa- 
tives of the people in various sections of the 
Union, to consult upon the political evils by 
which the country is menaced, and the political 
action by which those evils may be averted, we 
address to you this Declaration of our Princi* 



13 



pies, and of the Purposes which we seek to 
promote. 

We declare, in the first place, our fixed and 
unalterable devotion to the Constitution of the 
United States, to the ends for which it was es- 
tablished, and to the means which it provided 
for their attainment. We accept the solemn 
protestation of the People of the United Stales, 
that they ordained it, " in order to form a more 
perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic 
tranquillity, provide for the common defence, 
promote the general welfare, and secure the 
blessings of liberty to themselves and their pos- 
terity." We believe that the powers which it 
confers upon the Government of the United 
States are ample for the accomplishment of 
these objects; and that if these powers are ex- 
ercised in the spirit of the Constitution itself, 
they cannot lead to any other result. We re- 
spect those great rights which the Constitution 
declares to be inviolable, freedom of speech 
and of the Press, the free exercise of religious 
belief, and the right of the people peaceably to 
assemble and to petition the Government for a 
redress of grievances. We would preserve those 
great safeguards of civil freedom, the habeas 
corpus, the right of trial by Jury, and the right 
of personal liberty, unless deprived thereof for 
crime by due process of law. We declare our 
purpose to obey, in all things, the requirements 
of the Constitution, and of all laws enacted in 
pursuance thereof. We cherish a profound 
reverence for the wise and patriotic men by 
whom it was framed, and a lively sense of the 
blessings it has conferred upon our countrv, 
and upon mankind throughout the world. In 
every crisis of difficulty and of danger, we shall 
invoke its spirit, and proclaim the supremacy 
of its authority. 

In the next place, we declare our ardent and 
unshaken attachment to this Union of Ameri- 
can States, which the Constitution created, and 
has thus far preserved. We revere it as the 
purchase of the blood of our forefathers, as the 
condition of our national renown, and as the 
guardian and guarantee of that Liberty which 
the Constitution was designed to secure. We 
will defend and protect it against all its enemies. 
We will recognise no geographical divisions, 
no local interests, no narrow or sectional pre- 
judices, in our endeavors to preserve the Union 
of these States against foreign aggression and 
domestic strife. What we claim for ourselves, 
we claim for all. The rights, privileges, and 
liberties, which we demand as our inheritance, 
we concede as their inheritance to ail the citi- 
zens of this Republic. • 

Holding these opinions, and animated by 
these sentiments, we declare our conviction 
that the Government of the United States i3 
not administered in accordance with the Con- 
stitution, or for the preservation and prosperity 
of the American Union ; but that its powers 
are systematically wielded for the promotion 



AND EXTENSION OF THE IXTEREST OF SLAVERY' 

in direct hostility to the letter and spirit of the 
Constitution, in iiagrant disregard of other great 
• 3 ts of the country, and in open contempt 
of the public sentiment of the American people 
and of the Christian world. We proclaim our 
belief that the policy which has for years past 
been adopted in the administration of the Gen- 
eral Government, tends to the utter subversion 
of each of the great ends for which the Consti- 
tution was established ; and that, unless it shall 
be arrested by the prompt interposition of the 
People, the hold of the Union upon their loyalty 
and affection will be relaxed, the domestic tran- 
quillity will be disturbed, and all constitutional 
securities, for the blessings of liberty to' our- 
selves a&d our posterity, will be destroyed. 
The slaveholding interest cannot be' made per- 
manently paramount in the General Govern- 
ment, without involving consequences fatd to 
free institutions. We acknowledge that it is 
large and powerful ; that in the Slates where it 
exists, it is entitled, under the Constitution, like 
all other local interests, to immunity from the 
interference of the General Government, and 
that it must necessarily exercise, through its 
representatives, a considerable share of politi- 
cal power. But there is nothing in its position, 
as there is certainly nothing in its character, 
to sustain the supremacy which it.seeks to es- 
tablish. There is not a State in the Union in 
which the slaveholders number one-tenth part 
of the free whit| population — nor in the aggre- 
gate do they number one-fiftieth part of the 
white population of the United States. The 
annual productions of the other classes in the 
Union, far exceed the total value of all the 
slaves. To say nothing, therefore, of the ques- 
tions of natural justice and of political economy 
which Slavery involves, neither its magnitude 
nor the number of those by whom it is repre- 
sented entitle it to one-tenth part of the politi- 
cal powers conferred upon the Federal Govern- 
ment by the Constitution. Yet we see it seek- 
ing, and at this moment wielding, all the func- 
tions of Government — executive, legislative, 
and judicial — and using them for the augment- 
ation of its powers and the establishment of its 
ascendency. 

From this ascendency, the principles of the 
Constitution, the rights of the several States, 
the safety of the Union, and the welfare of the 
People of the United States, demand that it 
should be dislodged. 

! Historical Outline of the Progress of Slavery 
towards Ascendency in the Federal Government. 

It is not necessary for us to rehearse in detail 
the successive steps by which the slaveholding 
interest has secured the influence it now exerts 
in the General Government. Close students 
of political events will readily trace the path of 
its ambition through the past twenty-five years 
of our national history. 



14 



Tt was under the Administration of President 
Tyler, and during the negotiation which pre- 
ceded the annexation of Texas, that the Fed- 
eral Administration for the first time declared, 
in its diplomatic correspondence with foreign 
nations, that Slavery in the United States was 
a u political institution, essential to the 
peace, safety, and prosperity of those 
States of the Union in which it exists;" 
aud that the paramount motive of the American 
Government, in annexing Texas, was two-fold — 
first, to prevent the abolition of Slavery within 
its limits; and secondly, to render Slavery more 
secure and more powerful within the slavehold- 
ing States of the Union. Slavery was thus ta- 
ken under the special care and protection of the 
Federal Government. It was no longer to be 
left as a State institution; to be controlled ex- 
clusively by the States themselves ; it was to be 
defended by the General Government, not only 
against the invasion or insurrection of armed 
enemies, but against the moral sentiment of 
humanity, and the natural development of pop- 
ulation and material power. 

Thus was the whole current of our national 
history suddenly and unconstitutionally reversed. 
The General Government, abandoning the po- 
sition it had always held, declared its purpose 
to protect and perpetuate what the great found- 
ers of our Republic had regarded as an evil — 
as at variance with the principles on which our 
institutions were based, and as a source of weak- 
ness, social and political, to the communities in 
which it existed. At the time of the Revolution, 
Slavery existed in all the colonies; but, neither 
then, nor for half a century afterwards, had it 
been an element of political strife, for there was 
^no difference of opinion or of policy in regard 
to it. The tendency of affairs had been towards 
emancipation. Half the original thirteen States 
had taken measures, at an early day, to free 
themselves from the blighting influence and the 
reproach of Slavery. Virginia and North Car- 
olina had anticipated the Continental Congress 
of 1774, in checking the increase of their slave 
population, by prohibiting the Slave Trade at 
any of their ports. 

Sentiments of the Framers of the Constitution 
Concerning Slavery, 

The Constitution, conferring upon Congress 
full power to prevent the increase of Slavery by 
prohibiting the Slave Trade,had, out of regard 
for existing interests and vested rights, post- 
poned the exercise of that power over the States 
then fisting until theyear 1808 — leaving Con- 
gress free to exercise it over new States and 
over the Territories of the United States, by 
prohibiting the migration or importation of 
slaves into them, without any restriction except 
such as its own discretion might supply. Con- 
gress promptly availed itself of this permission, 
by reaffirming that great Ordinance of the Con- 
federation, by which it was ordained and de- 



creed that all the territory then belonging to 
the United States should be forever free. Four 
new States were formed out of territory lying 
south of the Ohio river, and admitted into the 
Union, previous to 1820 — but the territory from 
which they were formed had belonged to States 
in which Slavery existed at the time of their 
formation; aud in ceding it to the General Gov- 
ernment, or in assenting to the formation of 
new States within it, the old States to which it 
belonged had inserted a proviso against any reg- 
ulation of Congress that should tend to the 
emancipation of slaves. Congress was thus pre- 
vented from prohibiting Slavery in these new 
Stages, by the action of the old States out of 
which they had been formed. But, as soon as 
the constitutional limitation upon its power over 
,fche States then existing had expired, Congress 
prohibited, by fearful penalties, the addition, by 
importation of a single slave, to the number al- 
ready in the country. 

The fr amers of the Constitution, although the 
historical record of their opinions proves that 
they were earnest and undivided in their dislike 
of Slavery, and in their conviction that it was 
hostile in its nature and its influences to Repub- 
lican freedom, alter taking these steps to pre- 
vent its increase, did not interfere with it fur- 
ther in the States where it then existed. Those 
States were separate communities, jealous of 
their sovereignty, and unwilling to enter into 
any league which should trench, in the least 
degree, upon their own control of their own af- 
fairs. This sentiment the framers of the Con- 
stitution were compelled to respect ; and they 
accordingly left Slavery, as they left all other 
local interests, to the control of the several 
States. But no one who reads with care the 
debates and the recorded opinions of that age, 
can doubt that the ultimate removal of Slavery 
was desired by the People of the whole country, 
and that Congress had been empowered to pre- 
vent its increase, with a view to its gradual and 
ultimate extinction. Nor did the period of 
emancipation seem remote. Slave labor, em- 
ployed as it was in agriculture, was less profit- 
able than the free labor which was pouring in 
to take its place. And even in States where 
this consideration did not prevail, other influen- 
ces tended to -the same result. The spirit of 
Liberty was then young, generous, and strong. 
The men of the nation had made sacrifices and 
waged battles for the vindication of their inalien- 
able rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness ; and it was not possible for them to 
sit down in the quiet enjoyment of blessings 
thus achieved, without feeling the injustice, as 
well as the inconvenience, of holding great num- 
bers of their fellow-men in bondage. In all the 
States, therefore, there existed a strong tenden- 
cy towards emancipation. The removal of so 
great an evil was felt to be a worthy object of 
ambition by the best and most sagacious states- 
men of that age ; and Washington, Jefferson, 



15 



Franklin, and all the great leaders and repre- ■ 
fcives of public opinion, - • and 

earnest in demising measures by which it c 

be aec ■. 

But the . roduced in the indus- 

try of the Southern States, in the early part of 
the present century, by the increased culture of 
cotton, the introduction of new inventions to \ 
prepire it for use, and its growing importance 
to the commerce of the country and the labor 
of the world, by making slave labor more profit- 
able than it had ever been before, checked this 
tendency towards emancipation, and soon put an 
end to it altogether. As the demand for cot- 
ton increased, the interests of the cotton-grow- 
ing States became more and more connected 
with Slavery ; the spirit of freedom gradually i 
gave way before the spirit of gain ; the seuti- 
menta and the language of the Southern States 
became changed ; and all attempts at emanci- 
pation began to be regarded, and resisted, as 
assaults upon the rights and the interests of the 
slaveholding section of the Union. For many | 
years, however, this change did not affect the 
political relations of the subject. States, both 
free and slaveholding, were successively added 
to the Confederacy, without exciting the fears 
of either section. Vermont came into the Union 
in 1791, with a Constitution excluding Slavery. 
Kentucky, formed out of Virginia, was admitted 
in 1792, Tennessee in 1796, Mississippi in 
1817, and Alabama in 1819 — all slave States, 
formed out of territory belonging to slave States, 
and having Slavery established in them at the 
time of their formation. On the other hand, 
Ohio was admitted in 1803, Indiana in 181(3, 
and Illinois iu 1818, having formed State Gov- 
ernments under acts of Congress which made it 
a fundamental condition, that their Constitu- 
tions should contain nothing repugnant to the 
Ordinance of 1787 — or, in other words, that 
Slavery should be prohibited within their limits 
forever. In all these occurrences, as in the ad- 
mission of Louisiana in 1812, there had been 
no contest between Freedom and Slavery, for 
it had not been generally felt that the interests 
of either were seriously involved. 

The Missouri Compromise. 
The first contest concerning the admission of 
a new State, which turned upon the question of 
Slavery, occurred in 1819, when Missouri, form- 
ed out of territory purchased from France in 
1803, applied to Congress for admission, to the 
Union as a slaveholding State. The applica- 
tion was strenuously resisted by the people of 
the free States. It was everywhere felt that 
! the decision involved consequences of the last | 
importance to the welfare of the country, and 
that, if the progress of Slavery was ever to be 
arrested, that was the time to arrest it. The 
slaveholding interest demanded its admission 
as a right, aud denied the power of Congress! 
to impose conditions upon new States applying 



to be admitted into the Confederacy. The power 
rested with the free States, and Missouri was 
denied admission. Bat tin-* subject w; a review- 
ed. The slaveholding interest, with character- 
istic and timely sagacity, abated something of 
its pretensions, a?;d settled the controversy on 
the basis of compromise. Missouri was ad- 
mitted into the Union by an act bearing date 
March (J, 1820, in which it was also declared 
that "in all thit territory ceded by France to 
the United States, under the name of Louisiana, 
which lies north of 36° 30' of north latitude, 
not included within the limits of the State of 
Missouri, Slavery and involuntary servi- 
tude, otherwise than in the punishment of 
crimes whereof the parties shall have been duly- 
convicted, SHALL RE, AND IS HEREBY, FOREVER 

prohibited.'' In each Hoiue of Congress, a 
majority of the members from the slaveholding 
States voted in favor of the bill with this pro- 
vision — thus declaring and exercising, by their 
votes, the constitutional power of Congress to 
prohibit Slavery even in Territories where it 
had been permitted by the law of France, at 
the date of their cession to the United States. 
A new slave State, Arkansas, formed out of 
that portion of this Territory lying south of 36° 
30', to which the prohibition was not extended, 
was admitted to the Union in 1836. Two slave 
States thus came into the Confederacy by vir- 
tue of this arrangement ; while Freedom gained 
nothing by it but the prohibition of Slavery 
from a vast region which civilization had made 
no attempt to penetrate. 

Thus ended the first great contest of Free- 
dom and Slavery for position and power in the 
General Government. The slaveholding inter- 
est had achieved a virtual victory. It secured 
all the immediate results for which it struggled; 
it acquired the power of offsetting, in the Fed- 
eral Senate, two of the free States of the Con- 
federacy ; and the time could not be foreseen 
when, in the fulfillment of its compact, it would 
yield any positive and practical advantage to 
the interests of Freedom. Neither then, nor 
for many years thereafter, did any statesman 
dream that, when the period should arrive, the 
slaveholding interest would trample on its bond, 
and fling its faith to the winds. 

A quarter of a century elapsed before the an- 
nexation of Texas. Slavery had been active, 
meantime, in fastening its hold upon the Gov- 
ernment, in binding political parties to its 
chariot, and m seeking in Congress to stifle 
the right of petition, and to crush ail freedom 
of speech and of the press. In every slave- 
holding State, none but slaveholders, or those 
whose interests are identified with Slavery, 
were admitted to fill any office, or exercise any 
authority, civil or political. Free whites, not 
slaveholders, in their presence, or in the midst 
of their society, were reduced to a vassalage 
little less degrading than that of the slaves them- 
selves. Even at this day, although the white 



16 



population of the slaveh'olding States is more 
than six millions, of whom but 347,525, or less 
than one-seventeenth, are the owners of slaves, 
none but a slaveholder, or one who will act 
with exclusive reference to Slavery, is ever al- 
lowed to represent the State in any National 
Convention, in either branch of Congress, or in 
any high position of civil trust and political 
power. The slaveholding class, small as it is, 
is the governing class, and shapes legislation 
and guides all public action for the advance- 
ment of its own interests and the promotion of 
its own ends. Daring all that time, and from 
that time even to the present, all slaveholding 
delegates in National Conventions, upon what- 
ever else they may differ, always concur in .im- 
posing upon the Convention assent to their 
requisitions in regard to Slavery, as the indis- 
pensable condition of their support. Holding 
thus in their hands power to decide the result 
of the election, and using that power, y.ndevia- 
tingly and sternly, for the extortion of their de- 
mands, they have always been able to control 
the nominations of both parties, and, thus, what- 
ever may be the issue, to secure a President 
who is sure to be the instrument of their be- 
hests. Thus has it come to pass that, for twen- 
ty years, we have never had a President who 
would- appoint to the humblest office within his 
gift, in any section of the Union, any man 
known to hold opinions hostile to Slavery, or 
to be active in resisting its aggressions and 
usurpations of power. Men, the most upright 
and the most respectable^ in States where Sla- 
very is only known by name, have been ineligi- 
ble to the smallest trust — have been held unfit 
to distribute letters from the Federal post office 
"to their neighbors, or trim the lamps of a light- 
house upon the remotest point of our extended 
coast. Millions of our citizens have been thus 
disfranchised for their opinions concerning 
Slavery, and the vast patronage of the General 
Government has been systematically wielded 
in its service, and for the promotion of its de- 
signs. 

It was by such a discipline, and under such 
influences, that the Government and the conn- 
try were prepared for the second great stride 
of Slavery towards new dominion, and for the 
avowal of motives by which it was attended. 

Annexation of Texas and the War with Mexico. 
Texas was admitted into the Union on the 
29th of December, 1845, with a Constitution 
forbidding the abolition of Slavery, and a stip- 
ulation that four more States should become 
members Of the Confederacy, whenever they 
might be formed within her limits, and with or 
without Slavery, as their inhabitants might de- 
cide. The General Government then made 
virtual provision for the addition of five new 
slave States to the Union — practically securing 
to the slaveholding interest ten additional mem- 
bers in the Senate — representing States, it 



might be, with less than a million inhabitants, 
and out-voting five of the old States, with an 
aggregate population of eleven millions. The 
corrupt and tyrannical Kings of England, when 
votes were needed in the House of Lords to 
sustain them against the people, created Peers 
as the emergency required. Is there in this 
anything in more flagrant contradiction to the 
principles of Republican Freedom, or more 
dangerous to the public liberties, than in the 
system practiced by the slaveholding interest 
represented in the General Government? 

But a third opportunity was close at hand, 
and Slavery made a third struggle for the ex- 
tension of its domain and the enlargement of 
its power. 

The annexation of Texas involved us in war 
with Mexico. The war was waged on our part 
with vigor, skill, and success. It resulted in' 
the cession to the United States of New Mexi- 
co, California, and Desere't, vast territories over 
which was extended by Mexican, law a prohibi- 
tion of Slavery. The slaveholders demanded 
access to them all, resisted the admission of 
California and New Mexico, which the energy 
of freemen, outstripping in its activity the Gov- 
ernment, and even the slaveholding interest, 
had already converted into free States, and 
treasonably menaced Congress and the Union 
with overthrow, if its demands were not con- 
ceded. The free spitit of the country was 
roused with indignation by these pretensions, 
and for a time the whole nation roused to the 
tempest which they had created. Untoward 
events aided the wrong. The death of the Pres- 
ident threw the whole power of the Administra- 
tion into timid and faithless hands. Party re- 
sentments and party ambitions interposed 
against the right. Great men, leaders of the I 
people, from whom, in better days, the people 
had learned lessons of principles and patriot- 
ism, yielded to the howlings of the storm, and 
sought shelter, in submission, from its rage. 
The slaveholding interest was again victorious. 
California, with her free Constitution, was in- 1 
deed admitted into the Union ; but New Mexi- 
co, with her Constitution forbidding Slavery 
within her borders, was denied admission, and 
remanded to the condition of a Territory ; and 
while Congress refused to enact a positive pro- 
hibition of Slavery in the Territories of New 
Mexico and Deseret, it was provided that, when 
they should apply for admission as States, they 
should come in with or without Slavery, as their 
inhabitants might decide. Additional conces- : 
sions were made to the Slave Power — the Gen- 
eral Government assumed the recapture of fu- 
gitive slaves, and passed laws for the accom- 
plishment of that end, subversive at once of 
State sovereignty, and of the established safe- 
guards of civil freedom. Then the country 
again had rest. Wearied with its efforts, or 
content with their success, the slaveholding in- i 
terest proclaimed a truce. 



17 



When Franklin Pi. ie 4ch of M. 

1853, became President of the United States, 
no controversy growing out of Slavery wj 
tating the country. Established laws, some of 
them enacted with unusual solemnity, and un- 
der circumstances which made them of more 
than ordinary obligation, had fixed the charac- 
ter of all the States, and ended the contest con- 
cerning the Territories. Sixteen States were 
free States, and fifteen States were slave States, 
By the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Slavery 
was forever prohibited from all the Louisiana 
Territory lying north of the line of 3B°30 / ; 
while over that Territory lying south of that 
line, and over the Territories of New Mexico 
and Deseret, no such prohibition had been ex- 
tended. The whole country reposed upon this 
arrangement. All sections and all interests, 
whether approving it or not, seemed to acqui- 
esce in its terms. The slaveholding interest, 
through all its organs, and especially through 
the General Government, proclaimed that this 
was a final and irrepealable adjustment of the 
struggle between Freedom and Slavery for po- 
litical power; that it had been effected by mu- 
tual concessions, and in the spirit of compro- 
mise ; and that it should be as enduring as the 
Union, and as sacred as the Constitution itself. 
Both political parties gave it their sanction in 
their National Conventions ; the whole country 
assented to its validity j and President Pierce, 
in his first official message to Congress, pledg- 
ed himself to use all the power of his position 
to prevent it from being disturbed. 

But all these protestations proved delusive, 
and the a< >e and contentment which 

afforded the opportunity, not 
only for new aggressions on the part of Slave- 
ry, but for the repudiation of engagements into 
s had solemnly entered. Less 
a year had elapsed before these pledges 
were md the advantages which they 

secured to Fret -drawn by the slave- 

ing power. 

Kepeal of the Missouri Compromise. 
In the course of time and the natural 

tion, that portion of ihe Louisi- 
ana Terr' g west of the Missi 

north of the line of 36° 3(K, cam£ to 

for occupation ; and on the 24th of 

May, 1854, an act was passed erecting upon it 

the tw vies of Kansas and Nebraska, 

» Governments for them both. 

. region, the slaveholding i 

ibre, had agree 1 

rvvise 
le, should 
received, a 

ii m of Ark 
the Kan§s 

inop- 



of the bill was ; " I to be, li n 

y into any Territory or £ 

nor to 'exclude it therefrom, but' to. leavi 

people thereof perfectly free to form and regu- 
late their domestic institutions in th^ir own 
way, subject only to the Constitution of the 
United States." Thus, without a single petition 
for such action from any quarter of the T ' 
but a earnest remonstrances of thou- 

sands of our citizens, against the settled and 
profound convictions of the great body of the 
People in every portion of the country, and in 
wanton disregard of the obligations of justice 
and of good faith, the Missouri Compromise o r 
1820 was repealed, and the seal which had 
guarantied Freedom to that vast Territory 
which the United States had purchased, from 
France was snatched from the bond. Oregon, 
Washington, New Mexico, Deseret, and the 
new State acquired from Texas north of 36° 
30', by compact, were all opened up to Slavery, 
and those who might first become the inhabit- 
ants thereof were authorized to make lav- 
its establishment and perpetuation. 

The Invasion of Kansas and Action of the General 
Government. 

Nor did the slaveholding interest stop here 
in its crusade of injustice and wrong. The first 
election of members for the Territorial Lc 
ture of Kansas was fixed for the 30lh of March, 
1855, and the law of Coi < ribed that 

at that election none but "actual residents of 
the Territory ',' should be allowed to vote. Yet, 
rent people of the Ten-it selves 

exercising the right to \ rer J? 

which the act of Congress had 
them, the slaveholding interest sent r 
bands of men from the neighboring State of 

uri, who entered the Territory on the day 
of election, took possession of the polls, exclu- 
ded the legal voters, ana proceeded themselves 
to elect members of the Legislature, without the 

2St regard to the qualifications prescribed 

by law. The judges of election, appointed un 

der authority of the Administ. Wash- 

i ud abetted in the perpetration 

s upon the rights of the people 

of Kansas, arid the Presi . United 

vhom 
he ha bd to 

acknoi are which the slave-' 

holdic 3 from Missouri had 

posed upon the Territory. 

That Legislai 1 355. 

It 3 first act was to ex 1 
elected, wh 

. 

■ 

ed ov 



18 



that every person who should raise an insur- 
rection or rebellion of negroes in the Territory 5 
every person' who should entice away a slave, 
with intent to procure his freedom ; every per- 
son who should aid or assist in so enticing away 
a slave within the Territory ; and every person 
who should entice or carry away a slave from 
any other State of Territory of the 'Union, and 
bring him within the Territory of Kansas, with 
the intent to effect or procure his freedom, upon 
the conviction thereof should suffer Death. 
It was further enacted, that if any person should 
write, print, or publish, any book, paper, argu- 
ment, opinion, advice, or inuendo, calculated 
to produce a disorderly, dangerous, or rebellious 
disaffection among the slaves in the Territory, 
or to induce them to escape from their masters, 
he should be deemed guilty of a felony, and 
be punished by imprisonment at hard labor for 
a term not less than five years : and that if 
any free person, by speaking or writing, should 
assert or maintain that persons have not the 
right to hold slaves in that Territory ; or should 
introdace or circulate any book, paper, pamph- 
let, or. circular, containing any such denial of 
the right of persons to hold slaves in that Ter- 
ritory, he should be deemed guilty of felony, 
and be punished by imprisonment at hard labor 
for a term not less than two years. It was 
still further enacted, by the same Legislature, 
that every free white male citizen of theUnited 
States, and inhabitant of the Territory, who 
should pay a tax of one dollar, and take an oath 
to support the Constitution of the United States, 
the act organizing the Territory of Kansas, the 
Territorial law, and the act for the recapture 
of fugitive slaves, should be entitled to vote at 
any election in said Territory — thus making 
citizens of Missouri, or of any other State, legal 
voters in Kansas, upon their presentation at 
the polls, upon taking the oaths prescribed, and 
upon payment of one dollar — in direct violation 
of the spirit of the act of Congress, and in open 
disregard of the rights of the people of the Ter- 
ritory. And having made these enactments 
for the establishment of Slavery, the Legisla- 
ture appointed Sheriffs, Judges, and other offi- 
cers of the Territory, for their enforcement — 
thus depriving the peeple of all power over the 
enactment of their own laws, and the choice of 
officers for their execution. 

That these despotic acts, even if they had 
been passed by a Legislature duly elected by 
the people of the Territory, would have been 
null and void, inasmuch as they are plainly in 
violation of the Federal Constitution, is too 
clear for argument. Congress itself is express- 
ly forbidden by the Constitution of the United 
States to make any laws abridging the freedom 
of speech and of the press; and it is absurd to 
suppose that a Territorial Legislature, deriving 
all its power from Congress, should not be sub- 
ject to the same restrictions. But these laws 
were not enacted by the people of Kansas. 



They were imposed upon them by an armed 
force.. Yet the President of the Uuited States, 
in a special message sent to Congress on the 
24th of January, 1856, declares that they have 
been enacted by the duly-constituted authori- 
ties of the Territory, and that they are of bind- 
ing obligation upon the people thereof. And 
on the 12th of February, 1856, he issued his 
Proclamation, denouncing any attempt to re- 
sist or subvert these barbarous and void enact- 
ments, and warning all persons engaged in such 
attempts, that they will be opposed, not only 
by the local militia, but by any available forces 
belonging to the regular army of the United 
States. Thus has the Federal Government 
solemnly recognised the usurpation set up in 
Kansas by invaders from Missouri, and pledged 
all the power of the United States to its sup- 
port. American history furnishes no parallel 
to the cruelty and tyranny of these acts of the 
present Administration. The expulsion of aliens, 
and the penalties inflicted upon citizens for ex- 
ercising freedom of speech and of the press, 
under the alien an<^ sedition laws, which were 
overthrown by the Republican party of 1798, 
were lenient and mild when compared with the 
outrages perpetrated upon the people of Kan- 
sas, under color of law, by the usurping inva- 
ders sustained by the Federal Government. 

With a full sense of the importance of the 
declaration, we affirm that the . execution of 
these threats by the President of the United 
States, upon the people of Kansas, wffcld be an 
unconstitutional exercise of Executive power, 
presenting a case of intolerable tyranny 5 that. 
American citizens cannot submit to it, and re- 
main free ; and that if blood shall be shed in 
the prosecution of so unlawful a purpose, those 
by whose agency it may be spilt will be held to 
a strict and stern account by the freemen of 
the Republic. So plain, palpable, and delibe- 
rate a violation of the Constitution, would just- 
ify the interposition of the States, whose duty 
it would be, by all the constitutional means in 
their power, to vindicate the rights and liberties 
of the citizen against the power of the Federal 
Government ; and we take this occasion to ex- 
press to our fellow-citizens in Kansas, against 
whom these unconstitutional acts are directed, 
our profound sympathy with them in the resist- 
ance which it is their right and their duty to 
make to them, and our determination to make 
that sympathy efficient by all the means which 
we may lawfully employ. 

Thus, for a period of twenty-five years, has 
Slavery been contending, under various pre- 
texts, but with constant success, against the 
tendencies of civilization and (' f our 

institutions, for the extension and perpetuation 
of its power. The degree in which the Gen- 
eral Government has aided its efforts may' be 
traced in the successive steps it has taken. In 
178Y, all the States in the Confederacy united 
in ordaining that Slavery should be forever pro- 



19 



hibiied from all the territory belonging to the 
United States. Tn 1789, the first Congress of 
the United States passed a law reaffirming this 
ordinance, and re-enacting the prohibition of 
Slavery which it contained. In 1820, the slave- 
holding interest secured the admission of Mis- 
souri, as a slave State, into the Union, by acce- 
ding to a similar prohibition of Slavery from 
the Louisiana Territory lying north of 36° 30'. 
In 1854, that prohibition was repealed, and 
the people of the Territory were left free to ad- 
mit or exclude Slavery, in their own discretion. 
In 1856, the General Government proclaims its 
determination to use all the power of the Uni- 
ted States to enforce upon the people obedience 
to laws imposed upon them by armed invaders, 
establishing Slavery, and visiting with terrible 
penalties their exercise of freedom of speech 
and of the press upon that subject. While two- 
thirds of the American people live in States 
where Slavery is forbidden by law, and while 
five-sixths of the capital, enterprise, and pro- 
ductive industry of the country rests upon Free- 
dom as their basis, Slavery thus controls all 
departments of their common Government, and 
wields their powers on its own behalf. 

The Pleas Urged in Defence of these Aggressions 
of Slavery. 

As a matter of course, for all these acts, and 
for all the outrages by which they have been 
attended, the slaveholding interest pretends to 
find a wi^ant in the Constitution of the United 
States. All usurpation, in countries professing 
to be free, must have the color of law for its 
support. No outrage, committed by Power 
upon Popular Rights, is left without some at- 
tempt at vindication. The partition of Poland, 
the overthrow of the Constitution of Hungary, 
the destruction of Irish Independence, like the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the con- 
quest of Kansas, were consummated with a 
scrupulous observance of the forms of lav?. 

The Plea that the Missouri Compromise was not 
a Compact. 

I. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 
it is urged on behalf of those by whom it was 
effected, involved no violation of good faith, be- 
cause that Compromise was merely an act of 
Congress, and as such repealable at pleasure. 
Regarded as a legal technicality, we are not 
disposed to contest this plea. The Compromise 
was undoubtedly embodied in a Congressional 
enactment, subject to repeal. But in this 'case, 
very nature of the transaction, the faith 
of the parties was pledged that this enactment 
should not he repealed. The spirit of the law, 
whatever its form, was the spirit of a compact. 
Its enactment was secured by an exchange of 
equivalents. The slaveholding interest procured 
the admission of Missouri into the Union, by j 
consenting and voting, through its Representa- \ 
jives in Congress, that north of its southern line, 



in the Territory of Louisiana, Slavery should be 
prohibited forever. Without that consent and 
that vote, the admission of Missouri could not 
have been semired ; nor would the prohibition 
of Slavery until 1854, or until any other date, 
or for any other time than that specified in the 
act — namely, forever — have purchased the as- 
sent of the free States to the admission of Mis- 
souri as a slave State into the Union. The 
word forever, therefore, was a part of the law, 
and of the consideration for its enactment. 
Such a law may be repealed ; but its repeal is 
the rupture of a compact — the repudiation of 
a solemn covenant. The Missouri Compro- 
mise has been regarded as such a compact, from 
the date of its enactment, in all sections and 
by all the people of the country. Successive 
Presidents have invoked for it a respect and an 
obligation scarcely inferior to that of the Con- 
stitution itself ; and Senator Douglas himself, as 
late as 1845, declared that it had been ''canon- 
ized in the hearts of the American people, as a 
sacred thing, which no ruthless hand would 
ever be reckless enough to disturb." What- 
ever, therefore, the mere form of the bond may 
have permitted, good faith on the part of the 
representatives of the slaveholding interest re- 
quired that it should be kept inviolate. 

II. Nor is this charge of bad faith, brought 
against the slaveholding interest, for having re- 
pealed the Missouri Compromise, answered or 
evaded by the pleas argued in its defence, that 
originally it was forcibly imposed by the free 
States upon the slave States, without their con- 
sent; that it was subsequently violated by the 
free States, in their refusal to extend its provi- 
sions over New Mexico and Utah; or that its 
repeal, having been offered by the free States 
themselves, could not be resisted or refused by 
the representatives of Slavery. (1.) Even if it 
were trne that the prohibition of Slavery north 
of 36° 30 / was originally enacted by the free 
States, against the votes of the South, the fact 
that the admission of Missouri was accepted as 
the price of that prohibition would have made 
the slaveholding interest a party to the transac- 
tion, assenting to its terms, and bound by its 
obligations. But the fact is not so. The act of 
March 6, 1820, which admitted Missouri, and. 
prohibited Slavery in the Louisiana Territory 
north of 3G° 30', received in the Senate the 
votes of fourteen members from slaveholding 
States, while only eight were cast against it; 
and in the House of Representatives, thirty-eight 
members from the slave States voted for it, 
and thirty seven against it. A majority of the 
votes from slaveholding States, in each branch 
of Congress, were thus given for the bill ; and 
so far were the representatives of Slavery from 
regarding it as having been forced upon them, 
that Charles Pinckney, one of their greatest 
and ablest leaders, declared, on the night of its 
passage, that " it teas regarded in the slave- 
holding States as a triumph." (2.) Still more 



20 



absurd is it to say thai be refusal of the North 
to extend t . visions of the Compromise 
over other regions, was a violation of its terms, 
or in any way released the parties to it from 
their obligation to abide hv its requirements. 
(3.) It is true that the ostensible author of the 
proposition to repeal it was a Senator from a 
free State ; but that fact does not authorize the 
inference that the sentiment of the free States 
was justly and truly represented by his action. 
There was, indeed, no room to doubt that it 
was condemned by the unanimous voice of the 
free States, and that it would be regarded by 
them, and by the country at large, as a very 
gross and wanton violation of obligations which 
had been voluntarily assumed. No matter from 
what geographical quarter of the Union it came, 
it was brought forward in the interest and on 
behalf # of the slaveholders. This, indeed, is 
among' the worst of the effects of Slavery, and 
amoug the most signal proofs of its ascendent, 
that able and ambitious men should enlist in 
its service, and volunteer to perform offices on 
its behalf which its representatives would scorn 
to perform themselves — from the conviction 
that by that path the honors and dignities of 
the General Government are to .be secured. 
The slavemolding interest owed it to honor and 
good faith to resist the temptations which such 
men might hold out for the repudiation of its 
obligations. 

The Plea that Congress has no Power to Prohibit 
Slavery in the Territories. 

III. Bat it is urged that the original enact- 
ment of the Missouri Compromise, by which 
Slavery was prohibited from entering a portion 
of the territory of the United States, was a vio- 
lation of the Constitution ; that Congress has 
no rightful power to make such a prohibition; 
but that into any territory over which the Con- 
stitution is extended, the slaveholder has a right, 
by virtue of its provisions, to take his slaves. 
. In reply to this, we answer : 

First — That, whether the plea be true or 
false, it eomes too late ; ihai the slaveholding 
interest conce$ec| the constitutionality of the 
prohibition, by assenting to its enactment, and 
aiding it bj the rotes of its representatives. 

Second — That, if the plea were true, the 
enaeti was .null and void, by reason of its 

lity, and its repeal, therefore, 
was a needless ostentation of bad faith 5 and 

Third — -That the plea is not true, but is di- 
rectly ; e plain letter as well, as to 
. it . ''rhe Constitution, and to the uniform 
ice of the Government from its foundation. 
Aitulion declares that "the Congress 
ir to make all needful rules and 
,0 Territories or other 
prop Jug to the United States." This 
I in and very broad. It im- 
:pouthe power of Congress 
to ma ' regulations respecting the 



ltJHj i 



Te 

are " i 

iscretion of Congress to determine. If 
assumes that power to legislate for ; 
tories, which are the common pre , 
Union, must exist somewhere; and al 
may most justly, and most safely, be placed in 
the common Government of the Union. The 
authority of Congress over the Territories is 
therefore without any other limit than such as 
its judgment of what is " needful," of what 
will best promote their welfare, and that of the 
whole country to which they belong, may im- 
pose. If Congress, therefore, deem it, expedi- 
ent to make a rule and regulation which shall 
prohibit Slavery from any Territory, we find 
nothing in the Constitution which removes such 
a prohibition from the sphere of its authority. 
The power of Congress over the Territories of 
the United States is as complete and as fall as 
that possessed by any State Legislature over 
territory belonging to that State ; and if the 
latter may prohibit Slavery within its- territory, 
so may the former also. 

It has been urged, we are aware, that the 
rules and regulations which Congress is author- 
ized to make respecting the Territories are 
restricted to them regarded as property ; and 
•that this clause of the Constitution ponfers no 
governmental power over them whatev tr. Ijlu 
this cannot be so, because it is under this 
clause that Congress does govern the Territo- 
ries — that it organizes their GoverriBjfents, ana 
provides for their ultimate ad mis >tates. 

There is no other clause of the Constitution 
fipom which this power of government can be 
inferred ; as it unquestionably ex efore, 

it must rest upon thi isi - from 

whatever source it may be derived, the authori- 
ty to govern necessarily implies the rig 
decide what policy and what lav 
mote the welfare of those on whose behalf that 

Jrity is exercised. If Congress, 
believes that the well being of the 1 
and of the country at lar; loted 

by excluding* Slavery fr< in them, it b 
all question, the right hue 
elude it. 

This . iw of the ■ - 

the IV 

by other clauses of the Cousti 
ninth section of the first article, it is 
that " the migration or importatio 
persons as any of States no\ 
prop:-. ; not be pr 

gress prior to the year 1808." This i> 
grant Of power. ry, it is an 

tion imposed upon power 

language of the clause takes it G 
that C id power to prohibit 

tion and the importation of slaves — a power 
doubtless conferred by the 
late commerce with foi 
the several States ; " foi 



21 



com- 
of the C 

or importation of slaves a specil 

restriction — namely, that this p 
be exercised over any ol the States th 
prior to the year 1808. Over 
then existing, and, by still stronger implication, 
over a ny Territories of the United Stat s, the 
exercise of its authority was unrestricted; and 
it might prohibit the migration or importation 
time, in its own dis- 

perty in slaves contravene 
oce or the exercise of this authority. 
The Constitution does not recognise slaves as 
property, ia any instance, or to any extent. In 
the clause already cited, they are called "per- 
In the clause respecting their escape into 
.Si ares, they are to be returned, not as prop- 
erly, arsons held to service or labor." 
in the apportionment of representation 
and of direct taxes, it is provided by the Con- 
stitution that to the whole number of free per- 
sons are to be added three-fifths of all other 
3ns." In all its provisions which have 
reference to slaves, they are described and re- 
A as persons. The idea of their being 
refully and intentionally exclu- 
11 they are property at all, therefore, it 
is not by virtue of the Constitution, but of 
local laws, and only within their jurisdiction. 
The local laws of any State, are excluded from 
Dries of the United States, by the ne- 
y of the case as well as by the exclusive 
ignty conferred upon Congress. 

The Plea of Popular Sovereignty. 

!ing thus to establish the right of the 
iholder to carry his slaves as property, by 
3 of the Constitution, into territory belong- 
ing to ~the United States, the slaveholding in- 
terest has been compelled to claim, for the in- 
habitants of the Territories themselves, the 
right to provide for excluding or admitting Sla- 
very, as a right inherent in their sovereignty 
over their own affairs. This principle of pop- 
ular sovereignty, as it is styled, was embodied 
in the bills for organizing New Mexico and 
k Utah, and is made the substitute for the pro- 
hibition of Slavery in the Missouri Compro- 
mise, which it repealed ; and the slaveholling 
interest is now sustained by the Federal Gov- 
ernment in this new position, as it has been in 
all the positions it has successively assumed. 
The principle of popular sovereignty is funda- 
mental in our institutions. No one doubts that 
the people are sovereign over all the Territo- 
ries, as well as over all the States of the Con- 
federacy. But this sovereignty is subject to 
limitation and definition, and can only exist 
within the limitations of the Constitution. The 



■i-eign in the House of Repre- 
their sovereignty may be over- 
rate, or defeated by the veto of 
the President. The States are sovereign; but 
within certain limits, and in subordination 
sovereignty of the nation. Two sover- 
r the same country, and on the same 
: i manifest, cannot co-exist; one must 
.exclude the other. But the Con- 
stitution, in express and unmistakable terms, 
makes Congress sovereign over the Territories,, 
by conferring upon^it power to make "all need- 
ful rules and regulations respecting them." The 
doctrine of popular sovereignty in the people of 
the Territories finds no warrant or support in 
the Constitution. In the language of Mr. Cal- 
houn, " it involves an absurdity ; if the sover- 
eignty over the Territories be in their inhabit- 
ants, instead of the United States, they would 
cease to be Territories of the United State? the 
moment we permit them to be inhabited." So 
long as they remain Territories, they are the 
under the exclusive dominion 
of the United States : and it is for the General 
Government to make such larvs for them as 
welfare, and that of the nation, may re- 
quire. 

We deny that Congress may abdicate a por- 
tion of its authority, and commit to the inhabit- 
ants of a Territory power conferred upon it by 
the Constitution. Such an abdication is an 
abandonment of duty, and cannot be justified 
on the pretended principle of popular sovereign- 
ty. That principle, indeed, is discarded in the 
very act of Congress in which it is claimed to 
be embodied. If sovereignty exists, it must be 
exercised through the organized departments of 
Government — the legislative, executive, and ju- 
dicial. But the act to organize the Terri, 
of Kansas and Nebraska prescribes the requi- 
sites of citizenship and the qualifications of 
voters, confers upon the President and Senate 
the appointment of a Governor, who is clothed 
with the veto power, and of judges by whom 
the common law shall be interpreted. Each 
department of the Government thus rests virtu- 
ally in the power of the President of the United 
States. To style the small remnant of power 
which such a law leaves to the people u popular 
sovereignty," is an abuse of language, and an 
insult to common sense. Yet even this has 
been effectually destroyed, by the invasion ol 
armed men, sustained by the General Govern- 
ment in their high handed endeavor to force 
Slavery into Kansas, against the will of the hai dj 
settlers who have made it their home. 

This whole system of doctrine by which Sla- 
very seeks possession of the Territories of the 
United States, either by asserting the sovereign- 
ty of their inhabitants, or by denying the power 
of Congress to exclude and prohibit Slavery 
from them, is novel and alien to the principles 
and the administration of our Government. 
Congress has always asserted and exercised the 



22 



right of prohibition. It was exercised by the 
vote of the First Congress, in 1789, reaffirming 
the ordinance of the old Confederacy by which 
Slavery was prohibited from the Territory north- 
west of the Ohio river. It was exercised in 
1820, in the prohibition of Slavery from the 
Louisiana Territory north of 36° 30'. It was 
exercised in 1848, when Slavery was prohibited 
from the Territory of Oregon. 

Nor is it in the least degree impaired by the 
argument that these Territories, when they be- 
come States, and are admitted into the Union, 
can establish, or prohibit Slavery, in their dis- 
cretion. Their rights as States do not begin 
until their obligations as Territories end. The 
Constitution knows nothing of "inchoate States." 
Congress has power to make "all needful rales 
and regulations" for them as Territories, until 
they are admitted into the Union as members 
of the common Confederacy. 

General Tendency of Federal Legislation on the 
Subject of Slavery. 

In all these successive acts, in the admission 
of Missouri and of Arkansas, in the annexation 
of Texas and the provision for admitting four 
new States from her territory, in the war with 
Mexico and the conquest of her provinces, in 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and in 
the cruel war now waged against the people of 
Kansas for the extension of Slavery into that 
Territory, we trace the footsteps of a powerful 
interest, aiming at absolute political power, and 
striding onward to a complete ascendency over 
the General Government. It finds powerful 
allies, and an open field in the political arena, 
for the prosecution of its purposes. Always 
acting as a compact unit, it finds its opponents 
divided by a variety of interests. Partisan alli- 
ances and personal ambitions have hitherto pre- 
vented any union against its aggressions ; and 
not feeling or fearing the displeasure of their 
constituents, Representatives from the free 
States have been induced to aid in the promo- 
tion of its designs. All other interests have 
been compelled to give way before it. The 
representatives of Freedom on the floors of 
Congress have been treated with contumely, if 
they resist or question the right to supremacy 
# of the slaveholding class. The labor and the 
commerce of sections where Slavery does not 
exist obtain tardy and inadequate recognition 
from the General Government, which is swayed 
. by its influence, and for the accomplishment of 
its ends. The Executive of the nation is the 
willing servant of its behests, and sacrifices to 
its favor the rights and the interests of the coun- 
try. The purse and the sword of the nation are 
at its command. A hundred millions of dollars 
were expended in the annexation of Texas, and 
the war with Mexico, which was a part of its 
price. Two hundred millions have been offer- 
ed for Cuba, and war with all Europe is threat- 
ened, if necessary, to prevent the emancipation 



of its slaves. Thus is the decision of great 
questions of public policy, touching vast inter- 
ests and vital rights — questions even of peace 
and of war — made to turn, not upon the require- 
ments of justice and honor, but upon its rela- 
tion to the subject of Slavery — upon the effect 
it will have upon the interest of the slavehold- 
ing class. 

The people of the free States hava cherished 
the hope that the efforts made to extend Slave- 
ry, which have fallen under their notice, were 
accidental, and indicative of weakness rather 
than ambition. They have trusted that the sa- 
gacious statesmen of the slaveholding States 
would gradually perceive and acknowledge the 
inconvenience and danger of Slavery, and would 
take such measures as they might deem wise 
and safe, for its ultimate removal. They have 
feared the effect of agitation upon trfis subject, 
relied upon the good faith and honor of the 
slaveholding States, and believed that time, the 
natural growth of population, and the recog- 
nised laws of political and social economy, 
would gradually and peacefully work out the 
extinction of a system so repugnant to justice 
and the national character and welfare. It has 
seemed to them incredible, that in this late age, 
when Christianity has for near two thousand 
years been filling the world with its light, and 
when almost every nation on earth but our 
own has abolished chattel slavery, the effort 
should be made, or the wish cherished, by any 
portion of our people, to make the interest of 
Slavery predominant, and to convert this Re- 
public, the only Government which professes 
to be founded upon human rights, into the 
mightiest slave empire the world has ever seen. 
But it is impossible to deceive ourselves long- 
er. The events of the past two years have dis- 
closed the designs of the slave power, and the 
desperate means it is prepared to use for their 
accomplishment. W e cannot shut our eyes 
longer to the fact that the slaveholding interest 
is determined to counteract the tendencies of 
time and of civilization, by its own energy, by 
its bold appropriation of all the powers and 
agencies of the Government, and by the viola- 
tion, if need be, of the most sacred compacts 
and compromises. It is resolved that Slavery 
shall be under the protection of the national 
flag — that it shall no longer be the creature of 
local law, but that it shall stand clothed with 
all the sanctions, and sustained by all the power 
of this great Republic. It is determined that 
the President shall do its bidding, and that 
Congress shall legislate according to its de- 
crees. It is resolved upon the dethronement 
of the principles of Republicanism, and the es- 
tablishment, in their stead, of an Oligarchy, 
bound together by a common interest in the 
ownership of slaves. 

Nor have we any reason to believe that Sla- 
very will be content with this absolute suprem- 
acy over the Federal Government, which it 



23 



has already so well-nigh achieved. Ou the 
contrary, the dark shadow of its sceptre falls 
upon the sovereignty of the several States, and 
menaces them with dire disaster. South Caro- 
lina, abandoning her once-cherished doctrine of 
State Rights, asserts the Federal supremacy 
over laws made by States, exclusively for the 
protection of their citizens. The State of Vir- 
ginia is contesting, in courts of law, the right 
of the State of New York to forbid the exist- 
ence of Slavery within her limits. A Federal 
Court in Pennsylvania has denied the right of 
that State to decree freedom to slaves brought 
by their masters within her borders, and has 
proclaimed that Slavery exists by the law of 
nations. The division of California, and the 
organization of a slave State within her limits, 
have been proposed. A Senator on the floor 
of Congress has urged that the Government of 
the United States should no longer restrain, by 
its naval power, the African slave trade, and 
the demand for its restoration is openly made 
by Southern journals and by leading public 
men in the Southern States. 

"When these great objects shall have been ac- 
complished — when the States, as well as the 
General Government, shall have become subject 
to the law of Slavery, and when three hundred 
and fifty thousand slaveholders shall hold des- 
potic rule over the millions of this Republic, 
Slavery cannot fail, from the necessity of its na- 
ture, to attempt outrages which will awaken 
storms that will sweep it in carnage from the 
face of the earth. The longer tyranny is prac- 
ticed unresisted, the fiercer and the more dread- 
ful is the resistance which in the end it pro- 
vokes. History is full of instances to prove 
that nothing is so dangerous as a wrong long 
unredressed — that evils, which at the outset 
it would have been easy to remove, by suffer- 
ance become fatal to those through whose in- 
difference and toleration they have increased. 
The tendency of the measures adopted by the 
slaveholding interest to secure its own exten- 
sion, through the action of the Federal Govern- 
ment, is to give to Congress jurisdiction of the 
general subject; and its representatives must 
be sagacious enough to perceive, that if they es- 
tablish the principle that Congress may inter- 
fere with Slavery for its protection, it may in- 
terfere with it also for its destruction. If, there- 
fore, they succeed in such an enlargement of 
the power of Congress — having already discard- 
ed the principle of compromise from legisla- 
tion — they must foresee that the natural effect 
of their encroachments upon the rights and 
liberties of the non-slaveholding population of 
the country will be to arouse them to the di- 
rect exercise of the power thus placed in their 
hands. Whether it is safe or wise for that in- 
terest to invite such a contest, we need not here 
consider. 

The time draws nigh, fellow countrymen, 
when you will be called upon to decide upon 



the policy and the principles of the General 
Government. Your votes at the approaching 
Presidential election will determine whether 
Slavery shall continue to be the paramount and 
controlling influence in the Federal Adminis- 
tration, or whether other rights and other in- 
terests shall resume the degree of considera- 
tion to which they are entitled. The issue is 
upon us by no act of ours, and it cannot be eva- 
ded. Under a profound conviction of impend- 
ing dangers, the grounds whereof we have now 
set forth, we call upon you to deliver the Con- 
stitution and the Union from the subjugation 
which threatens both. Holding, with the late 
Mr. Calhoun, that " the obligation to repel ag- 
gression is not much less solemn than that of 
abstaining from making aggression, and that 
the party which submits to it, when it can be 
resisted, is not much less guilty and responsi- 
ble for consequences than that which makes 
it/' we invoke a surrender of all party preju- 
dices and all personal feelings, and a cordial 
and earnest union for the vindication of r'ghts 
and liberties which we cannot surrender with- 
out degradation and shame. We summon you 
to send delegates, in numbers three times as 
large as your representation in Congress, to 
meet in Convention at Philadelphia, on the 17th 
day of June next, to nominate candidates for 
the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the 
United States. Let them come prepared to * . ' 
surrender all personal preferences, and all 
sectional or local views — resolved only to make 
such nominations and to take such action as 
shall advance the principles we hold and the 
purposes we seek to promote. Disclaiming 
any intention to interfere with Slavery in the 
States where it exists, or to invalidate those 
portions of the Constitution by which it is re 
moved from the national control, let us prevent 
the General Government from its ascudency, 
bring back its administration to the principles 
and the practice of its wise and illustrious 
founders, and thus vindicate the Constitution 
and the Union, and secure the blessings oft 
Liberty to ourselves and our posterity. 

We do therefore declare to the people of the 
United States, a3 objects for which we unite in 
political action : 

1. We demand and shall attempt to secure 
the repeal of all laws which allow the introduc* 
tion of Slavery into Territories once consecr^ed 
to Freedom, and will resist by every constitu- 
tional means the existence of Slavery in any of 
the Territories of the United States. 

2. We will support by every lawful means 
our brethren in Kansas in their constitutional 
and manly resistance to the usurped authirity 
of their lawless invaders, and will give the full 
weight of our political power in favor of the 
immediate admission of Kansas to the Unio'h 
as a free, sovereign, and independent State. 

3. Believing that the present National Ad- 
ministration has shown itself to be weak and 



24 



to na 






with 



ig civil 
rp'aniza 



Oa m 

Address was 
adopted by a 11 
nine cheers. 
Mr. : 



f Judge Spauldino . . C 
accepted and the Resolutions 
ous vote, ac 



Oh 



floor; 



I0tl( 









1 7 

w 


leee 

Mi 





! Republican organization, and to it we delegate 

duty of extending information from that 

I point to the people throughout the United 

| States, by the circulation and distribution of 

iients and speeches. 

Judge Spaulding moved that the official pro- 

| ceedings of the Convention be published in 

ihlet form by the Republican Association 

of Washington city. Carried. 

On motion of Mr. Howard, of Connecticut, it 
was voted, that the thanks of the Convention 
be presented to its officers, for the able and im- 
partial manner in which they have discharged 
their several duties ; to the Republicans and 
is of the city of Pittsburgh, for their hos- 
pitality, attention, and kindness. 

On motion of John A. King, of New York, 
the Convention at one o'clock, P.M., adjourned 
sine die. F. P. BLAIR, President. 

Russell Errett, ") 

Jo P xC_ VaTJGHAN, [ Secrpfayi ^ 

Isaac Dayton, j 
James W. Stone, J 



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